Fly smarter, pilots told

US military helicopter pilots in Iraq have begun changing flight patterns and using other evasive tactics to reduce the chances of being shot down by missiles and other weapons fired by guerillas, Defence Department officials said yesterday.

"You can be certain that pilots are now taking different approaches to their tactics, techniques and procedures," one official, who asked not to be identified, told reporters.

He said that could include varying routes and schedules and sometimes flying very low and fast to throw off the aim of would-be attackers.

Officials spoke in response to questions after a US Black Hawk military helicopter crashed in Iraq on Friday, killing all six on board.

Soldiers at a US Army base near the crash site said it was probably downed by a rocket-propelled grenade.

Friday's helicopter crash was the third time in two weeks that Iraqi guerillas have brought down a US military chopper, with the total loss of 22 lives.

Troops from the 82nd Airborne Division had gathered at an abandoned air base in central Iraq for a memorial service to mark the deaths of 16 soldiers killed when a CH-47 Chinook transport helicopter was shot down last Sunday.

Two more soldiers from the 101st Airborne died in separate roadside bombings in Mosul, in northern Iraq, on Thursday and Friday. Eight soldiers were injured.

The downing of three US military helicopters in quick succession provides the administration in Baghdad with yet another indication of the growing sophistication and frequency of attacks by Iraqi guerillas.

At least 33 American soldiers died in October, double the number in the month before. And already in the first week of November another 31 soldiers have died.

Some Defence officials said the military was looking into how many helicopters in Iraq were equipped with defensive packages, such as flares and metal chaff.

"They are checking on those measures, and the maintenance status of each aircraft," one official said.

The Chinook was equipped with a package of counter-measures, including an AL-156 metal chaff dispenser and an M-130 device that distributes flares to counter heat-seeking missiles.

But it was not known if the device was operating at the time the helicopter was downed by what is thought might have been a Russian-made SA-7 shoulder-fired missile.

US Senator Richard Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, claimed that some Illinois and Iowa National Guard aircraft in Iraq - the Chinook's pilot was from Durbin's state - lacked equipment to fend off surface-to-air missile attacks.

Mr Durbin said "reliable military sources" had told him they had been battling to get anti-missile equipment and that helicopter crews had been reduced to scavenging items from other helicopters.

A Pentagon spokesman, Marine Captain David Romley, said that sophisticated aircraft survivability equipment was not routinely installed on helicopters by manufacturers and that it was the option of military units to install it.

Estimates suggest that Iraq had 5000 to 7000 portable missiles, predominantly SA-7s that are visually aimed and then home in on heat from an aircraft's exhaust.